The invention relates generally to the field of product placement, also known as integrated entertainment marketing. Specifically, the invention relates to cataloguing product placements for information presentation, clear identification, direct and indirect purchasing, and measuring marketing performance of products featured in entertainment productions.
Product placement and integrated entertainment marketing is the practice of gaining product (good or service) exposure by physically positioning the product or the product's name in entertainment media, typically a motion picture or television program. The practice also employs other forms of entertainment productions including music, music videos, video games, books and literature, and events. Objects of product placement commonly include props, script elements, set fixtures, set design, wardrobe, costume design, equipment, vehicles and machinery, outdoor signage, production locations, venues, and embedded storyline advertising.
FIG. 1 illustrates various examples of product placement in a single motion picture screen shot 102 such as lamps 104 placed as a prop, the character's dress 106, the character's watch 108, and the stereo 110 used in the scene.
Generally, product placement and entertainment marketing has developed into three categorical levels of degree: Direct Trade, Tie-In or Focused Advertising, and Branded Entertainment Partnership.
Direct Trade
A Direct Trade is the common and traditional form of product placement, and FIG. 2 is an example of a Direct Trade. The product's manufacturer or agent may supply the production with a particular good or service, typically requested by the production company. In this way, the product is given potentially valuable exposure, and the production company reduces its costs of acquiring props, wardrobe, accessories, set elements, and the like. An agreement may even include the product's name in the closing credits. However, a trade agreement does not necessarily guarantee significant, if any, exposure. Exposure may be diminished or completely eliminated from the final edit at the director's discretion. An example of direct trade is illustrated by the product 202 shown in the screen shot of FIG. 2.
Tie-In and Focused Advertising
An upgrade from the Direct Trade product placement is a Tie-In or Focused Advertising campaign, which collaborates objectives of the production and the product brand. FIG. 3 exemplifies a Tie-In support initiative, where the brand implements co-marketing efforts to advertise its product 306 and brand 308 with the production and its proprietary assets, such as the production's logo 302 or certain images 304. These co-marketing tactics often employ traditional media such as television commercials, print, radio, the Web, point-of-purchase displays, etc. This type of agreement reduces marketing costs for the producer, and the manufacturer earns increased control over the product's significance of exposure.
Branded Entertainment Partnership
A heightened level of the Tie-In/Focused advertising agreement is the Branded Entertainment Partnership, exemplified in FIG. 4. A major film production requires tens of millions of dollars to promote a feature, and a marketing partner is a valuable resource for providing that budget. Such partnerships allow the product brand to significantly associate itself with the entertainment brand, even if the product is not used in the entertainment production itself. Agreements may allow the co-marketer further use of entertainment properties such as images, artwork, trademarks, copyrights, etc. to market the product. A Branded Entertainment Partnership may not necessarily entail an actual product placed in the production; however, a product brand may still exploit its entertainment marketing value, as illustrated by the product packaging 402 in FIG. 4.
Product Placement and Integrated Entertainment Marketing Development
The field of product placement and entertainment marketing is a popular marketing initiative, largely due to its jackpot cost structure and its high-profile nature. The field has gained more popularity in the current advertising market due to various trends and industry factors. Traditional advertising in the current media landscape faces some significant challenges. With the issues of clutter and content disruption, advertisers question message effectiveness, delivery, and efficiency. Ads compete with other ads for audience reception, and audiences tend to ignore ads by using remote controls. Furthermore, with the emergence of various ad-skipping technologies (i.e. video-on-demand, TiVo, digital video recorders, XM radio, etc.), advertisers resort to more creative forms of communication. These issues are of utmost concern to marketers across the globe as the cost of traditional media increases. One of the most popular and growing alternatives is product placement, in which the exposure or message is embedded within the entertainment content.
Internet Advertising Development
Advertisers covet the value of the Internet for advertising because the medium is technologically versatile in achieving various marketing objectives. Advertisers have learned how to use techniques only the Web can offer. Some techniques include capturing consumer data, measuring results of advertising campaigns, and tracking paths of consumers from the ads they view to the date and place of purchase.
Problems with Product Placement and Integrated Entertainment Marketing
Product placement offers an alternative to traditional advertising; however, there are trade-offs. And, just as there are complications for advertisers, there are also complications for consumers, retailers of those products, and even the production companies. Those inconsistencies are described below according to each perspective.
The Advertiser Perspective
Clear product or brand identification. Many placements are not clearly visible for audiences to identify the product or the brand, and some placements go even unnoticed. In some cases, the placement may even be excluded from the director's final cut.
Underdeveloped or unplanned advertising messages. Because placements are restricted to the context of the script, it is difficult to plan and deliver a specific message to influence consumer behavior or action.
Investment risk. There is a high level of uncertainty on how much exposure the placement will earn, what kind of consumer recall it will generate, and if it influences purchasing behavior.
No tangible link to consumers. There is no tangible link between on-screen exposure to the end user and consumer response.
Complex and expensive mix of support marketing tools. In order to ensure message delivery, a marketer may supplement the product placement with various support tactics. A support campaign may be as complex and expensive as a traditional marketing communications campaign, implementing marketing tools such as point-of-purchase, Internet, television, print, and radio ads. This mix may even require additional personnel and outsourced agencies. The support campaign not only gets costly, but measuring each tactic gets complicated. Thus, it is difficult to analyze the performance of the product placement itself in comparison to non-product placement marketing tools.
Credibility risk. Brand advertisers risk weakening the link between the product and the production by implementing separate support campaigns. The placement generates the sincere exposure, but the support campaign plays the major marketing communications role. Thus, the consumer may perceive the placement to be insincere or superlative.
Measurement and control. There is no quantifiable return on investment or standard system for measuring the effectiveness of product placement in traditional marketing or business metrics (i.e. Nielsen ratings, effective audience reach, ROI, etc.). Thus, from an advertiser's perspective, it is difficult to justify spending in product placement. In other words, product placement is either an instinctive gamble, or companies use it as a supplement tool in full marketing campaigns.
Retailer Perspective
The marketing nature of product placements remains at the national branding level. From the perspective of retailers and distributors, it is difficult to use the product placement to their advantage.
No product placement to sales correlation. The distributor is unable to relate the product placement to merchandise it carries.
No store traffic generation. There is no proof that the product placement message generates consumer traffic to the distributor.
Consumer identification. There is no way for the distributor to communicate to consumers that it carries the products seen on screen.
No valid measurement. The distributor cannot link sales to the product placement tool for measurement.
Consumer Perspective
While the product placement may spark a consumer's interest, it is extremely difficult for consumers to identify the product for purchasing.
Product identification. It is often difficult for a viewer to clearly identify a featured product or its brand and manufacturer, as exemplified by the Armani dress 202 in FIG. 2.
No response mechanism for product identification. There is no vehicle to fully deliver a message initiated by the product placement, even for proactive consumers.
Fragmented information. If product placement information is available on the Internet, or from another source, the consumer must search various sources to identify the product. Furthermore, even if the consumer does identify the product and its manufacturer, the consumer may then need to do further research to locate a retailer for the product.
Other goods and services. Some goods and services featured in entertainment productions are not necessarily objects of integrated entertainment marketing. For example, a consumer may be interested in attractive tourist sites and events featured in a movie.
Lack of promotional awareness. Often, a brand will offer a promotional tie-in with the placement; however, the promotions may not be efficiently channeled to the consumer, leaving the consumer unaware of promotional benefits.
Production Company Perspective
While product placement is a viable source of supplies and funds for production companies, the production company faces the following concerns:
Compromised content. The producer risks compromising the content's creative and artistic integrity by forcing awkward products on screen.
Credit clutter. Some product placement agreements may include product names in a listing during the closing credits. That listing may become cluttered with a long list of products.
Removal and liquidation. Production companies are burdened with the task of removing products and supplies from the set. Many of those products and supplies may be stored in a warehouse, and that warehousing can become costly. Such burdens may also distract staff from focusing on core production functions.
Negotiating leverage. Without a standard measurement system and a method to ensure product placement effectiveness, production companies may not be able to negotiate sound agreements. A platform and system designed to market and measure featured products offer production companies a method of driving effectiveness and negotiating leverage to attract advertisers, secure product placement partners, and valuate those partnerships.
Some information sources, particularly online sources, may publish information regarding products featured in movies or television. For example, a fashion website may list some fashion-related products featured in movies or television; however, such publications do not comprehensively list various featured products from various product categories.
Some websites designed to promote the motion picture or television program themselves may include or link to some featured product information. Such sites are designed for that particular production, and they do not collaborate and catalogue featured products from multiple productions.